Stories And Podcasts You May Have Missed |
A recent NPR reporting trip to Iran found a country soldiering on through U.S. sanctions and a struggling economy, but there still was cause for leadership there to worry: More Iranians are openly critical of the government, and corruption within it.
The driver who ran down and killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Va., got life in prison. Those who organized the white nationalist rally that weekend have faced few penalties, but a lawsuit argues that leaked messages show the violence there was planned in advance — and are citing an 1871 anti-Ku Klux Klan law in seeking justice.
The percentage of Americans who belong to a church, mosque or synagogue has declined in the past 20 years, forcing some congregations to sell their houses of worship. More than 6,800 religious buildings have sold in the past five years and more than 1,400 are currently for sale, according to a real estate database. While some will become home to new worshippers, others are being converted into bed and breakfasts, apartments, coffee shops and more.
Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg completed a two-week sail across the Atlantic this week, dropping anchor off Coney Island and coming ashore in Manhattan to attend a UN summit. She said she hopes to spread climate awareness among Americans, although she’s given up on the president: "If no one has been able to convince him about the climate crisis — the urgency — then why should I be able to?”
After a through drubbing in the 2018 election, moderate Republicans gathered to assess what went wrong. The Main Street Caucus, a fundraising powerhouse for the centrists, came under particular fire, and that rift hasn’t healed. Some in the GOP worry that fight could kill the party’s chances in swing House districts next year.
If you’ve been trying to avoid nitrates – preservative compounds that can turn into carcinogens when cooked or digested – Consumer Reports has bad news: You’ve probably been eating just as much of them. Their study found that “no nitrates added” labels on deli meats mean only that synthetic sodium nitrite wasn’t used, and that the overall nitrate levels in the products are similar.
Thirty years ago, 184 people walked away from a plane crash in Sioux City, Iowa, that probably should have killed them. En route from Denver to Chicago, United Flight 232 lost its hydraulic systems, which meant pilots could no longer maneuver the plane. Most later simulations ended with the plane plummeting out of the sky; Al Haynes got it onto an airport runway, though it came apart there. He died this week at 69. If your child is struggling with their weight, the best thing you can do to help is changing the environment around them to encourage healthy eating and physical activity – and to help them feel comfortable in their body. "Sometimes parents misguidedly think that if they tease the child, that it will motivate them to try harder to lose weight," a psychologist says says. "There's virtually no evidence that that works. And in fact, there's evidence that it causes harm." |
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| Spencer Platt/Getty Images |
Take a look around your town, and there’s a good chance you’ll come across at least one dollar store. These bargain-basement retailers have achieved new dominance since the Great Recession, but they’ve also been accused of stifling local businesses and limiting access to fresh foods in low-income communities. On Point looks at discount stores’ benefits and costs for the poor.
Law enforcement in Travis County, Texas, responded to more than 600 adult sexual assault allegations in 2017; that same year, only one person was found guilty by a jury. Community advocates question whether the criminal justice system is really set up to protect rape victims. KUT’s Nadia Hamdan investigates in a four-part podcast, The Provability Gap.
What, exactly, does the typical American look like? (Not average, because no family can have 1.9 children.) Planet Money hunts for the answer, a process that's more difficult, and more subtle, than expected.
Jia Tolentino has a talent for decoding the elaborate absurdity regularly produced by the Internet. Her new book of essays exploring that foreign land, "Trick Mirror: Reflections On Self-Delusion," already is sitting pretty high on bestseller lists. She sat down with NPR's Sam Sanders to hash out the ramifications of putting your entire life online, and what happens when you attempt to optimize it.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke is from El Paso, and left the campaign trail earlier this month to deal with the aftermath of the mass shooting there. Some Democrats would have liked O'Rourke to drop out of the race entirely, and instead make another run for a U.S. Senate seat. He explains to NPR’s Politics Podcast why he’s not doing that, and how he’d approach immigration and gun laws. |
| Robert Falconer/The CW, David Lee/Epix, Kimberley French/The CW, Courtesy of Hulu, Courtesy of FX, Courtesy of Netflix |
| Summer is finally ending, which means it’s time to come back inside and settle into the warm glow of the TV/laptop/streaming-device-of-your-choosing. This is the time of year TV series typically launch, and NPR’s critics found a surprisingly weird array of offerings, which they assess in both funny podcast and handy list formats. |
| — By Christopher Dean Hopkins |
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